I am a single mother working from home, I have been given the opportunity to work for a web site designer. He has been building sites for recyclers for years, and now wants to branch out and offer sites to service providers, like plumbers, Hvac, lawn care and electric companies. I have been cold calling companies offering our services with only little success. I believe I could sign up more clients with a better script. Please let me know if you can help and what info you need to design a cold calling script that will help me close more deals. ~ Thanks, Deborah

My first thought, Deborah, is that the market you’re in is highly competitive. The results you’re getting may not be all that atypical. These days, everyone and their mother is a website designer. Small business owners get called every day about SEO services, website design services, mobile marketing, and so on.

So, before we look at your script, review your calling statistics first. Do you even keep logs? How many calls are you making per week? Out of those, how many times do you speak to the decision maker? Of the decision makers you reach, how many become leads? You say you want more sales, perhaps there’s nothing wrong with your script and all you need to do is make more calls. Or, maybe your list is no good if you’re reaching too few decision makers- time to shop for a better list.

Next, ask yourself, “what am I doing to improve my skills?” What sales books have you read lately? Have you looked through telemarketing blogs, magazines, and books? Do you network with other work-at-home telemarketers and share ideas and techniques? Do you record your calls and then review them later? Have you been jotting down lessons learned after your calls? Do you select a technique to practice every day and then rate yourself according to how well you think you did?

The type of telesales you’re engaged in requires a consultative approach- a script is only the starting point for you. A good sales person can be successful with just a short list of bullet points.

So, before you spend your hard-earned money on a script, evaluate how committed you really are to being a professional telemarketer. If you’re not doing the things outlined above, then no script is going to help you very much.